Chapter 29: Operation Bedwarmer 2 - The Votes Are Cast and My Health Improves

The guys were a bit despondent for a while then things got back to normal. I put a whiteboard up on the wll in the mess with a question written in big letters at t he top. "What language do you want to learn next?"

The crew perked up instantly. The arguments over mess flew thick and fast. We ended up with several languages listed on the left and hash-marks on the right. We had votes for Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Thai, Russian and Chinese. The politicking was amusing to watch as the hash marks moved fluidly from one column to another. Finally Portuguese won the contest. I had fond memories of the little salsa girls! We had a winner. I wiped the board and wrote in some new categories. The question at the head of the board was "Which Country?" The choices were Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde and Portugal. Let the voting begin!

The African/English girls of Agola would be at the bottom of the social ladder—the economically disenfranchised. These girls would be found on the streets or in the orphanages. This had potential as they would be ready to go anywhere as long as it was not Angola. I confrimed that there was an orphanage structure in place, so a limited degree of educaton and nutrition was insured.

The girls of Brazil were part of a sexualy explicit and permissive culture. Of all the groups they would be the most worldly but perhaps not the best companions or sailors. Each girl would be a real gamble. Again, an orphanage tradition was in place, but that didn't guarantee anything in the face of the culture.

The girls of Cape Verde were from a generally disadvantaged culture where disease was rampant, sanitation was poor and education was not given much merit. They would probably be poor and uneducated, but thankful to get out from under the grinding pverty of the lower social strata. Anyone from the upper class would have nothing to do with us. There was no in-between.

The girls of Portugal were a question mark. Their backgrounds would be from the lowest to the highest as the church was the great leveller. The Catholic foundations of the culture hopefully would foster a tradition of orphanages and schooling, similar to what we had seen in Germany.

I explained my reasoning to both shift's mess to hopefully give them the data to make an informed decision. After all, this concerned a year out of their lives and perhaps a make-or-break for the lives of fifteen young women. I left it to the vote, yet conspired on my own.

I returned to contemplating the Buddha, stretching and performing my kata. The liver spots on my hands cleared up quite a bit, which raised my spirits tremendously. My joints stopped their incessant aching due to the daily exercise and the spa treatments. I consumed Jell-O and stews rich in gelatin. My skin recovered much of its elasticity, and didn't look so much like that of a seventy-year-old man. My muscle mass slowly recovered but my hair and beard came in white.

My patent application for a bulletproof self-sealing survival suit came back, approved! Yippee! Now I needed to get some samples made for my proof of concept. I needed a survival suit manufacturer that would cooperate in incorporating layers of Kevlar within their suits, or a more modern equivalent to Kevlar.

Helly-Hansen didn't hang up when I contacted them, and after a few days of back-and-forth arbitration they thought it was a damned good idea to include an aramid-based puncture-proof fiber matting between the layers of their suits. The fiber mats were saturated in a gel that would flow for a bit, then bond and polymerize, sealing any holes. It wasn't the "Gumby" suit that I'd originally envisioned, but they were willing to make a test run incorporating double-sided sholder vents to prevent the wearer from dying of heat prostration. They were also wiling to build in chest pockets for 24-hour heater packs too. Nice guys. Cooperative and knowledgeable.

They had a good laugh at my last request, but complied for the hell of it. I told them that I was an old Star Trek freak, and any suit with a red top and black pants was just asking for it! It was the uniform of the away-team security guys, that always took it in the neck in new, inventive and gruesome ways, in damned near every show. I asked for the tops to be made in a golden-colored fiber. They would stand out better in the water, and would give them a recognizable brand as well.

We each got a new suit, and wore them off and on for a couple of weeks. They got a bit stinky, but that was to be expected. That's what detergent was made for! Each suit was fitted with a small strobe light and a PLB (personal locator beacon) for recovery in nasty condtions, such as high seas, obscured condtions (fog, smoke, sleet, snow or rain) or at night. They were fitted with a large ring behind the neck which was sewn into a full body harness for helicopter- or crane-based retrieval. I received a monthly check for the licensing fees! How do you like that! I had an independent retirement income, just like that.

Meanwhile, we were still sailing: still trans-shipping cargo. Our route took us from Kiel to Wismar, Gdansk, Stockholm, Way up the inlet ot Oulu, back down to Stavanger, over to Dublin and way out to the north end of Great Britain to Thurso.

There I paused to visit the sea wall where I sat and watched the giant rollers dash themselves againt the rocks. I could feel the powerful breakers collide with the thick stone wall through my feet. I realized just how dangerous our jobs were witout any government hanky-pany messing about with our lives.

Winter was coming on and it was time to get the hell out of the north sea!

We dead-headed down to the Birkenhead docks, across the estuary from Liverpool. (A place which will forever be known for four guys that couldn't read sheet music to save their souls.)

There we loaded two containers bound for Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The crew were all anxious to reach Portugal where a new group of bed-warmers waited for them—or so they thought. I'd done some more research on the subject and had contacted an orphanage in Luanda, Angola. I conversed with the mother superior about hiring a dozen or more of her girls of half-European descent out of the country. She was ecstatic at the opportunity.

I put her in touch with the headmaster of the orphanage-school in Wismar, Germany. Our 'worldly' solution to hiring the girls gave her no pause whatsoever, as they had no futures ahead of them except selling their bodies for food or as field hands. The recent political upheaval made anyone with their skin tone targets of anyone with hot blood. Many of them were too terrified for their lives to even leave the orphanage grounds.

I made contact with the government immigration offices in Lisbon. Yes, I could get refugee passports for the women if I could prove three years' dependable income. I did much research concerning the the suthern coast of Portugal, the cities and the ameneties. I found a little sea-side town called Lagos just west of a high-energy vacation center named Portimao. There were many full-service, high-cost hotels in Portimao, but in Lagos, not so much. I found a small place in Lagos called Porta da Villa, consisting of apartments and studios. It had consistently good reviews and was within walking distance of the beaches and old-town, where the up-scale shops were. I had a corporation formed and bought the place. I also finagled my way into buying two blocks of land immediately to the South East, for room to expand. I had one of the apartments reserved for me and good portion of the rest went into a four-story block of apartments for fifteen young ladies, times two. If it went well then I would buy the next block, then do it again. You see, I was planning for life after I left the ship.

I wanted a place where I could live my lfe and scare the tourists with my Zero Mostel and Papa Hemingway imitations. Maybe I'd open a bar and abuse the patrons. People liked that shit, where they could curse the bartender and he gave them the finger back. I wanted to open a place where the welcome mat read "Oh Shit—Not You Again!"; where screaming kids and tourists were smacked on the ass and thrown out the door.